


DIDSMP

by Anonymous



Series: The Dream Team DID System [9]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: ADHD, Ableism, Ableist Language, Alters, Clay | Dream Has ADHD (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream Has DID - Dissociative Identity Disorder (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream Has PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dream Smp, Gen, GeorgeNotFound is a Good Friend, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Switching, Tommyinnit is Insensitive, all quickly corrected, and quickly corrects himslef, at first, but like he still is, but the content is still there, did I do that?, he doesnt mean poorly, how many people r using this tag what?, okay thats actually a tag now what
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 19:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30110739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The system had planned for this, had decided it was time to tell some of the other DSMP members about having DID. But they hadn't exactly planned for it to happen this way.-OR: The Dream Team is a DID system. This is shared with a few more people of the DSMP.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound, The Dream Team System - Relationship
Series: The Dream Team DID System [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2078016
Comments: 23
Kudos: 263
Collections: Anonymous





	DIDSMP

**Author's Note:**

> CW: switching, mentions of trauma, discussion of DID, ableism, invalidation of DID (quickly corrected)
> 
> Numerous characters (particularly Tommy) are somewhat insensitive at first. Comments about alters not being their own people and personality crisis are made. All of these things are corrected by characters and the characters who make these comments apologize and due better. None of it is ill intended and they all improve, but these things do still happen and that is important to note. Read at your own discretion. You know your triggers best.

It's not a sudden thing, but a decision and agreement that takes time to come to.

Most of the system wants it, but it's still hard to agree on where to draw the line.

Al thinks it's a bad idea, and Raven surprisingly agrees with him. Dream and Clay are for it, Forrest is apprehensive. Ze and Taken have a short list of who should be trusted and the littles are desperate for more friends. X is scared, Luc excited. And Bad… well bad has no opinion or interest interacting with any of them, so as long as the system's wellbeing and safety is prioritized, he’s leaving the details to the rest.

It takes a while to work out a balance, a conclusion of what should happen, who they should tell, and how.

But eventually they figure it out, and decide to tell some more of the DSMP members about their system. They form a plan and a short list, outlining how they're going to go about all of this. They get full permission from the system, and plan to proceed.

Of course, things go to shit.

They were doing some plot planning. Something Clay usually didn’t really do. In fact, they SMP as a whole didn’t tend to do a lot of serious plot planning, it was mostly messages about cool ideas and stream times, piecing together storylines around a few major events.

But they had actually gotten together today. Personally, planning out plot stuff wasn’t something Clay hated, but he didn’t think he was very good at. He did enjoy talking it all out, because he loved seeing where everyone else took things. Tommy and Wilbur's addition to the server and the wave of creativity they brought with them had to have been Dream’s best idea in a long time.

Tommy had reached out with some ideas to pull a bunch of people together for some event, and so Clay had joined. A decision that he was regretting as he kept spacing out and losing time.

The missing gaps are disorientating and confusing, making it ten times harder to carry on with a conversation. He's spacey and dissociating and it all kind of sucks. It’s one of those days when his brain and body seem to be working against him, doing their best to be more like static than an actual living being.

He half thinks about leaving and taking a break, maybe taking a nap if he can.

"Dream, thoughts?" he hears George speak up.

And George's talking, and George is safe. He's in safe place and he's drifty and not thinking and-

"It's Clay. Not Dream," he says.

George let's out an awkward chuckle and the sound of it has Clay frowning, focusing a bit more as pulls away from his hazy dissociation.

"Uh…" he offers. He's forgotten something, he knows he has.

Tommy's laugh and echoes loudly and Quackity spits out a shocked, 'What?'

Clay jumps back to reality, blinking rapidly as he realizes he's extraordinarily fucked up. He half blames it on George because when has George ever been present for lore discussion.

"I mean, I didn't mean to say that-" he stumbles.

"Oh so Gogy gets to call you Clay but we don't," Karl says, laying it on thick.

Clay groans, shoving his face in his hands and thinking.

"I mean it's my name." He isn’t Dream.

"Dream you having some sort of personality crisis?" Quackity jokes, "Or uh, I mean Clay?"

And it's a joke. It's a joke and it's funny and Clay’s hazy and they're having a good time.

But Clay- Dream, the whole system hears the words personality crisis and immediately becomes defensive.

"We're not having a fucking personality crisis" he hisses quickly.

"Right-" George tries to bite in with a nervous chuckle, but Tommy bulldozers over him.

"Did he just say we? Like him and Dream are two seperate people?" Tommy barks, laughing harder.

And it's- from their perspective it’s funny, it's a joke. It's odd. If any of them were acting like this, it would be funny but for Clay- for Clay it's different because-

"We're different people," he bites out, before anyone can stop him, "We're different- I'm not Dream. I'm Clay."

"Clay-" he hears George say, and then he loses the front.

Ze comes to, already in full panic mood with her hands gripped tightly and ready to fix things fast. Her hands shake from where they’re clenched in her lap and she can feel everyone pushing towards the front, all shouting at her as numerous people ask questions from on the call.

She can feel Al in the background, throwing up amnesiac walls to keep everyone else unaware and safe.

Fuck what does Ze do?

"You could tell them," Raven offers, near the front as well in case they need their other protector. Ze freezes.

"What?" she asks, cursing when the question is voiced externally. She never does that.

'You could tell them.'

'That’s a decision for everyone to make, not me,' she protests.

'I know,' Raven says, 'I know. But we have talked about this and the system- we do want this. We're just afraid.'

Ze considers. It is true, they have talked about it and they all want to. They’ve had the conversation that this was bound to happen eventually, that they were comfortable with those closest knowing. Except, except is the risk worth it?

Ze checks the call to see who's here.

George, Techno, Tommy, Wilbur, Quackity, Tubbo.

These are people she trusts, that the whole system trusts. If it had one of the newer members, it would be a different story. But it’s not, it’s people who the system knows well. All of them had been in the short list they created. They were all people they already had planned to tell.

George already knows, and will support them. Techno doesn’t know exactly, but after Raven had gotten triggered out in their duel he’s aware that they’re dealing with something. Everyone else, well...

It’s more people than the system has ever told at once. More people then the system has ever chosen to tell. This wasn't how they had planned to do it. They had a plan, this isn’t that.

But there’s not much she can really do about that.

'Okay,' she says, 'Okay are we doing this?'

She gets permission from Raven, who's also able to hear a few of the others inside to get consent. It’s already been discussed, but she appreciates the check in, especially considering Ze's stuck fully in the front right now and Al’s keeping everyone else away.

Raven reports that most of them are noticeably nervous, especially Dream and Taken, but each of them are also excited.

"Okay," Ze says verbally, "Uh hi."

Numerous voices meet her on the phone.

She closes her eyes, wishing she had prepped more for this moment. They've discussed the idea of it, and they've gotten to a point where they wanted to do this. But they had never actually made it to the planning stages of how.

"So," she said, "I uh, I'm not Dream. Or Clay. My… my name is Ze. We have DID."

"What?" Tommy barks out with a laugh and Ze cringes. There's numerous other voices of confusion from the line.

"Uh," Tubbo says, "Uh what's that? What do you mean?"

Ze sighs, “DID is short for Dissociative Identity Disorder. It means that we have altered states of consciousness that form distinct personalities, experiences, and backstories. All of the alters share a body, and often have large memory gaps between one another and in their own experiences.”

“So like Split,” Tommy says, and Ze instantly winces.

Numerous voices tell Tommy off at least, even if he does protest with a confused "What?!” Ze doesn’t think he does it on purpose but it still hurts.

“Split’s not accurate at all. We’re not dangerous,” she says, “But we do have different alters living in this one body.”

“So you’re saying Dream and Clay are actually different people,” Wilbur says.

“Yeah,” Ze says, “yeah they are.”

“And you're Ze?” Techno asks.

“Yup.”

“Uh why?” Tubbo asks, voice quite, obviously unsure, “Like, why do you have DID? How do you get something like that?”

Ze tenses and squeezes her eyes shut, feeling Raven carefully creep into more and more of the front, ready to take over if need be. She waves her off and she leaves to check in with Al, confirming that the amnesiac barriers stay steady.

“DID is formed by severe repeated childhood trauma. The child forms different alters with different roles to best protect the child. And no, we’re not telling you about our trauma.”

The call goes quiet.

“So do you have a role then?” Wilbur asks.

Ze takes a breath, more and more confident about the decision to tell Wilbur. Even though Wilbur wasn’t anyone in the system’s best friend, he had been one of the first people on the list to tell because of how earnest and trustworthy he is. The whole system had agreed that out of everyone, he was most likely to be open and receptive, listening to what they had to say.

“Yes. I’m what’s referred to as a protector, specifically the primary protector. The name is pretty self explanatory.”

“So it’s you, Dream, and Clay?” Quackity asks.

“No,” she says, “No there’s a lot more of us.”

“How many more?”

She takes a deep breath and prepares. So far they’ve been supportive, but if speculation is about to occur, it’ll be now.

“It depends,” she says, “New alters can split off at any time, and old alters can integrate or go dormant. Right now we have ten alters.” She doesn’t bother even delving into the concept that is fragments. Their system doesn't have many of them anyways, to her knowledge. Al's the only one with any level of information about them, so she only knows what he's shared.

“Ten?!” Tommy says, “There’s ten of you? What the fuck?”

“Yes,” she says, quietly.

“Tommy, don’t be a prick,” Wilbur hisses.

“I’m not!” Tommy protests, “I just learned Dream is actually ten people it’s a bit of a fucking shock. Or uh, Dream and co. Sorry Ze, I don’t know, how do we refer to all of you?”

Ze blinks, surprised by Tommy’s maturity. He does that a lot, flips between being such a child and then incredibly mature. It reminds her a bit of Forrest.

“We actually- We call ourselves the Dream Team,” she admits, “Clay came up with it a while ago, it came up and fans grabbed onto it, but it originally referred to our system.”

“Have we met all of the Dream Team?” Tubbo asks.

Ze frowns.

“I don’t know,” she admits, “Clay and Dream obviously. I’d imagine Forrest,” she pauses. “Uh, George do you know?”

“Definitely Forrest,” George agrees, “Taken too.”

“Really?” she asks. Taken’s not exactly a socializer.

“Yeah, he and Quackity get along.”

“Of course,” she snorts. She should have fucking guessed.

“I think one or two of you have met Raven,” George continues, “and then, well everyone’s met- uh I don’t know if you want me sharing Ze?”

Ze sits up, quickly going through who’s missing. The littles- who she would have definitely heard about if they had fronted around any member of the smp- and…

“You’ve met Bad,” she realizes, acknowledging out loud.

“Uh, what?” Quackity chuckles.

“You’ve met Forrest, Taken, Raven, and Bad to some degree.”

“Bad as in BadBoyHalo?” Tommy asks, “Cause you know he’s definitely a real person.”

Ze cringes at the words. Real person, right. Maybe they believe her, but they’re still not going to recognize each of them as their own selves.

“Tommy,” George hisses, “Ze, Bad, and the rest of the system are real people.”

“No! That’s not what- I meant he has his own real body and shit. That’s what I meant!” he hurries to clarify.

The comment still stings, as Ze imagines it always will, but she accepts the fact that Tommy is a child and still learning. Forrest has made plenty of similar mistakes and stumbles.

“Bad is a fictive,” she explains, “He was created based on a character, specifically Daryll’s Minecraft character, BadBoyHalo. He is Bad, just without Daryll. It’s- It can be a bit confusing,” she admits, “But he’s very nice, I’m sure you can ask him questions about it sometime.”

As long as she warns him, Ze thinks. Bad’s sweet, and caring, but he’s also extraordinarily self conscious about being the only fictive of the system in addition to being an introject of their best friend’s character. Hopefully, his caring nature will override his embarrassment and he’ll be willing to share his experiences with the group.

“-about everyone?”

“Hm, sorry what?” she asks, realizing that she had lost track of the conversation, zoning out a bit.

“Can you tell us a bit about everyone?” Wilbur asks, “if you want, and if they're okay with it.”

It's nice of Wilbur to think of her systemmate's consent. Not many people do toward the beginning.

Ze considers. There’s a lot she’s not willing to share, that the system doesn’t want shared. Trauma, Taken’s history, Clay’s dormancy, X’s creation to name a few. But a little bit of sharing doesn’t have to discuss all of that.

“Yeah, okay,” she says, “Like I said, I’m Ze. I handle a lot of the hard emotions the system deals with.

“Then there's Dream, who all of you know. Uh- he’s outgoing, competitive, social. He’s co-host, which means he’s one of us that fronts the most.

“Then Clay, who is also the co-host. He’s a bit more relaxed than Dream, more chill. He’s really smart too. Dream usually fronts during the manhunts, but Clay’s often forced to do the research.

"Al is our gatekeeper. He doesn’t front and he helps things run smoothly.

“Bad is a fictive, like I said. He’s a caretaker, he makes sure we’re all doing okay and stuff. Sweet guy.

“Raven is our primary protector, she’s a bit hard headed but really cares about everyone.

“Taken is… also hard headed. He’s short-tempered, but he means well.

“That's the uh- adults of the system,” she admits, “Most of us are around the body’s age but Al and Taken are both a bit older.”

“You’re different ages?” Techno asks.

“Yeah,” Ze admits, waiting again to be called out for faking or making it up, “Yeah, alters can be any age, race, sex, even species.”

“Species?”

“Yeah. Alters are formed to protect the body, so they can- whatever the brain can imagine, they can be. Bad’s part demon.”

“Dude, that’s fucking sick,” Tommy exclaims.

Ze tenses, and immediately fights the urge to snap back. She wants to shout that it’s not cool, that it actually sucks, that each of them were formed for a reason and Bad is part demon because trauma made him that way, that Bad’s existence is because they can’t take care of themselves sometimes.

Ze exists because the body hurt too much and Clay was dormant for years because he couldn’t handle the memories, and Young Clay had to split off from him and fade for him to return. Forrest and X have both seen way too much for children, and Luc will never get a true childhood. Taken hurt constantly, and he took it out on the body in a desperate but misconstrued attempt to keep them safe.

Raven can’t take a moment’s rest because they’re in the middle of the public eye and they could be hurt (again) at any time. Dream’s had to become the spokesperson for the entire system, wearing him down and not allowing him to be recognized as himself.

DID isn’t pretty, it isn’t a novelty.

It’s a lot more than having best friends in your head. It’s tears, it’s lost time and panic attacks, it’s forgetting who you are and constant flashbacks. It’s pounding headaches and depressive episodes. It’s fighting with people you can never get away from and crippling dysphoria.

Ze loves her headmates, loves the system, but that doesn’t mean DID, dissociation, trauma, mental illness doesn’t suck.

But she grits her teeth and says nothing. She lets the anger, frustration, and hurt sit for a moment, taking it all in so the rest of the system doesn’t have to deal with it. It’s her job, to front in situations like this so no one else has to face this.

She takes a deep breath, and lets it go.

“Luc and X are both littles- young children,” she continues, “Luc is outgoing, X is shy.”

It’s an oversimplification on the littles, but Ze- like the rest of the system- is incredibly protective of them. For now, they’ll introduce the topic of DID to their friends, but for them to really get to know the littles will be a way down the line if they prove themselves trustworthy and capable.

“Last is Forrest. Tommy, Tubbo, he’s about your age. He’s-” she rolls her eyes wondering how on earth to describe Forrest, “a bit chaotic, but loving,” she settles on. It doesn’t do justice to the whirlwind teenager that he is, but it’ll have to do.

Ze finishes her explanation, and everyone seems to be taking it well. She feels Al gently pull down the amnesiac borders that surround the front and more then a few of the systemmates push forward a bit to try and catch up with what's going on.

“Wait how old is he? Am I still the youngest?” Tommy asks, pushing desperately.

Ze smiles.

“He’s younger,” she confirms.

“Ha!” Tommy shouts, “Finally. Take that Forrest! You dick!”

“Rude,” Forrest grumbles, “I might be younger but at least I’m more mature than you.”

The call goes quiet.

“Hi Forrest,” George greets.

“Hi George,” Forrest answers, “Yeah, hi everyone. I’m Forrest. Tommy’s a dick so I’m fronting now. Super nice of you to tease me when I’m not here.”

“You’re here now!” Tommy protests.

Forrest grumbles. He has a point.

“Great. More children,” Techno deadpans.

“Techno, you play a kids block game for a living, don't even start,” Forret snarks back.

Techno snorts from the other end, and Forrest smiles at at least being able to get him to laugh. He’s always liked Techno, for his biting sarcasm and wit. Plus he and the rest of the system can relate to hyperfixating, especially hyperfixating on Minecraft. None of them have hyperfixated on Minecraft potatoes to be fair, but to each their own. ADHD is like that sometimes.

“So uh, if no more questions, we can get back to… whatever it is we were talking about,” Forrest says, “I have no clue what. It’s kinda nice to say that too instead of trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.”

“You don’t remember?” Tubbo asks.

“Nah,” Forrest says, “A lot of times we don’t pass over memories and stuff. And we dissociate a lot, world gets all fuzzy and shit. Plus I have really bad memory blocks compared to everyone else in addition to Al putting up walls. I only knew what was going on cause sharing this stuff is kinda a big deal so everyone’s kinda tuned in.”

Forrest shifts in his seat, holding his breath as he waits for any responses. Ze pushes back in, ready to take over if needed, but more than willing to let Forrest front if she's not.

"We were working on plot stuff," George says, "Right?"

The group gives some kind of general consensus and then starts to plan again. Forrest allows a sigh of relief and goes along for the ride.

He gets asked more than a few questions about the system as they continue, and there are a bit of awkward gaps of silences that Forrest knows have to do with his presence, but he makes it through the call.

He taps his foot on the floor as he finally says goodbye to everyone and leaves the vc. Almost instantly, he gets another call from George.

"Hey Forrest," George says, "I wanted to check in. How are you doing?"

"Uh- they know now,'' Forrest admits, still trying to process reality. He didn't really have a chance while being thrown to the front right in the middle of all of this. None of them had been expecting Tommy to trigger him out like that.

Speaking of Tommy, Forrest pulls out his notebook and starts to take count of who were on the call and now know they have DID. Tommy, Tubbo, Techno, Quackity, Wilbur, and Karl.

"They do," George says.

"I think it went okay," Forrest said, "Uh, how did they respond to Ze? I mean I assume it went okay because there was no panic and shit when I took the front."

"Pretty well. A bit of confusion and scuffed inappropriateness, but with a quick recovery," George admits, "They're a really good group of people y'know."

"Yeah," Forrest agrees, "Yeah. I know. I think- I think this is good to be okay. I think… I think it will be nice. Y'know, getting to be me and all.”

“That makes sense,” George says.

“That was scuffed as fuck though,” Forrest admits. But what the fuck, when hasn’t their life been scuffed to hell? This can be one more thing to add to the list. And you know what, Forrest is okay with that.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is probably the one I've been most asked for as well as the one I've been most hesitant to post. As a singlet I don't want to write a story about DID as if it's some sort of whimsical experience versus a real mental illness many people experience, and I've seen fics were systems share about having DID where that whimsicalness seems to be the focus of the fic. I didn't want this to be that. Hopefully I've executed that well.
> 
> Also, it's always the systems choice whether they share about having DID/OSDD. As singlets, it's not our right or something we deserve or a proof of trust. It is solely the choice of the system and that should be respected. There are so many factors of why a system would/wouldn't share that information with you, and that is their business, not yours. System's don't owe you anything, nor do they have to prove anything. If they're willing to share, great! If they're not, back the fuck off.


End file.
